Leonard B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Leonard B., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1926. He recalls his father's high position in a German company and his mother's as a school principal; living with his grandparents due to his parents' work situations; attending a private school; German invasion; closure of all schools; moving with his parents and grandparents to the ghetto area; an uncle being summoned by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); his aunt working in the hospital; his mother arranging a tutor for him in their home; hospitalization three times; his aunt saving him from a hospital deportation; apprenticing in the factory his father managed; deportation in 1944 to Auschwitz; transfer to Vechelde; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Braunschweig, Oranienburg, and Ravensbrück; encountering an uncle there (a short moment of joy); his uncle's death that night; transfer to Flossenbürg; observing cannibalism by Ukrainian prisoners en route; liberation from a transport by United States troops; returning to Łódź, seeking relatives; his grandfather's maid caring for him and informing him his mother was alive; reclaiming their apartment and furniture; attending high school and university; virulent antisemitism; and emigrating with his mother to Israel in 1951, then joining relatives in the United States. Mr. B. discusses gaps in his education due to no schooling during crucial developmental years; relations between national groups in the camps; attributing his survival to luck; and visiting Poland with one son and his other son's refusal to go.

1 videocassette